


Please Come Home For Christmas

by SynthApostate



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon-Typical Problematic Language, Feelings and crap, Fluff, Holiday Blues, M/M, Separations, Ugh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SynthApostate/pseuds/SynthApostate
Summary: If not for Christmas, by New Year’s Night.Four months after Hoover Dam, O’Hanrahan goes home for Christmas. Razz stays behind. He is NOT sad about it.Meanwhile, Mags makes things weird.
Relationships: O'Hanrahan/Razz (Fallout)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Please Come Home For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moon_crater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_crater/gifts).



> Sequel of sorts to G, You Look Good to Me, which I swear we have not abandoned. It’s plotted and everything, but 2020 was a bad mental health year. I’m posting this tonight in hopes that 2021 is better in all respects. Light spoilers for G, You Look Good to Me, kept intentionally vague.
> 
> What you need to know: the Legion gets their assess kicked, the squads are restructured, the Misfits are separated, but not so far that our poor dumb babies can’t still be a couple.
> 
> Warning for problematic (mostly misogynistic) language. Razz is working on it, but he still has his raider vocabulary.

_ Dear Razz, _

_ I hope you will come up with our boy for a good long visit this Christmas. _

* * *

“Razz! Up and at ‘em!”

“Fuck, Mags, I’m busy.” Razz folded his Boxing Times around Ma O’Hanrahan’s letter and gave the intruder his most intimidating glare. She barely noticed.

“Busy loafing in your tent? Alone? Come on, get up. It’s time to ring in the new year.”

“You know, you don’t live here anymore. You’re not my squad leader, Sarge.”

“No, but I still outrank you, Corporal.”

“And you’re so hard up you have to order me to hang out with you?”

“Pretty much, yeah. You’re the only friend I have around here—“ She smiled suddenly. “—who didn’t go home for Christmas.”

Fuck, she had him there. With the fighting stopped and the Legion running East like scared little bitches, the army was handing out leave like it was candy. The only ones still hanging around were the hardcore types like Mags who lived for this military shit, and the fuckups who couldn’t pass the army’s most basic bullshit tests. And the losers who had no place to go, but most of them were putting in for weekends in Vegas while the new mayor was still willing to open the gates for them. Razz was the only one bumming around Camp Golf with nothing to do.

“Come on, stop moping around and celebrate with me.” She held up her hands, and he noticed for the first time that she was holding a wine bottle and two glasses. Well, this deal was looking better already. He hadn’t had so much as a piss-weak beer all month.

“I am not moping,” he said. “I’m just being by myself for a change. But you can come in,” he added, feeling like he could afford to be generous. “As long as half that bottle is for me.”

“Of course it is. Why else would I have brought two glasses?”

Razz wasn’t fancy enough to drink wine out of glasses, so he just shrugged. Mags thumped all her crap down on a shelf, poured two glasses, and offered him one. He eyed it suspiciously. It was fizzy.

“It’s champagne,” said Mags. “It’s traditional.”

“So ringing in the new year means getting bombed out of your mind on bubble wine?”

“If you’re doing it right. Then you listen to the countdown and get a kiss at midnight.”

“Kiss? You’re here to fucking kiss me?” He sat up straight, suddenly real fucking aware that he was lying in bed, half dressed and ready for sleep. Not that Mags had ever cared about seeing the guys in their underwear before, back when they all shared a tent. And she hadn’t bothered to change her own clothes behind a screen after the first couple of weeks, when she’d figured out they didn’t care. O’Hanrahan wasn’t interested, Poindexter was a one woman man, and Razz... well, as much as he liked to wind her up, making cracks about her good looks, she wasn’t the kind of girl he’d really go for, even if he didn’t already have a boyfriend he was crazy about. And he’d thought she felt the same way about him.

But here she was, in his tent in the middle of the night with nobody else around, trying to kiss him.

“Oh my god, Razz, it’s not a sex thing! It’s for good luck. I have to kiss somebody or else I’ll have a lousy year, and I know you won’t show up tomorrow thinking we’re suddenly an item. Look—“ She gestured at the baggy khaki she was wearing. “If I wanted to seduce you, do you think I’d do it in full uniform?”

“I dunno... yeah? What else is there?”

“God, you’re dumb. I don’t know how you and O’Hanrahan ever got through to each other. But if you don’t have that kind of imagination, I won’t go putting ideas in your head.”

“Listen, asshole, I know how most girls would do it. Like—a raincoat with nothing underneath.” He mimed opening a coat to bare his imaginary sweater stretchers. Then he did a pole dancer’s shimmy, and she broke up laughing.

“Okay, you’re right, that’s not me.”

“Yeah, no shit.” He’d never met another girl with a body like that and no idea how to use it. Mags was army to the fucking core.

“So, you cool with totally platonic smooching, or should I find someone else?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s cool. Whatever.” He could have made a joke about it, told her that was all she was good for, but he didn’t. That shit wasn’t as funny as it used to be. Nice people didn’t talk like that to their friends. Plus she’d kick his ass if he pushed her too far, and for once Razz didn’t feel like fighting.

“You have a radio in here?” Mags asked.

“O’Hanrahan does. Little O’Hanrahan, I mean.” Hex, that was, but he tried not to call either one of them by their first names outside his own head. “Go ahead and run down her batteries so she can’t torture the rest of us with that sappy crooner shit when she gets back. Whenever the fuck that is.” Since the fucking 80s decided to celebrate Christmas by blowing up the train tracks out by the border, everybody taking their leave in the Northwest Territories was stuck there until the repair crews could come through.

“Sounds ghastly,” said Mags. “Don’t worry, I’ll do my part.”

Razz took a sip of her weird wine while she messed with the radio dials. It kind of made him want to sneeze, but the taste was okay. He could drink it.

He went back to his Boxing Times while she settled in to listen to Mr. New Vegas, broadcasting from the Strip through a Securitron linkup. He didn’t touch Ma’s letter, though. He didn’t want to get all sentimental in front of Mags.

He liked that her idea of hanging out was to be in the same room, doing their own things, not talking. It made her really easy to be friends with.

He half-listened to the broadcast while he flipped through the magazine. It sounded like there was a hell of a party going on over there. Mr. New Vegas was interviewing one of the Chairman, it sounded like. Those guys were pretty cool, all except that fucking asshole Benny. Not as cool as the Omertas, maybe, but they had style. Razz could respect that. It wasn’t a style he could pull off, but some people could. Maybe Hoss could.

Razz tried to picture his boyfriend in a suit, with his hair all slicked down. Then in shorts and boxing gloves. Then in the fucking raw. Yeah, that was better than a suit and tie.

“How is O’Hanrahan doing?” Mags asked.

“Fuck—what? Fine? He’s fine. He’s fucking fine, I guess,” Razz stammered, hoping his face wasn’t red. “I don’t fucking know, man. He’s been gone three weeks.”

“Okay, first of all, it wasn’t a trick question,” Mags laughed. “And second, I was talking about Little Miss O’Hanrahan. You know, your squadmate? The one with the radio? Give me a progress report.”

“Oh, her. Thinks she’s God’s gift to the army. Doesn’t want to put in the work.” He shrugged. “What else is new?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. What about Hertzler?”

“Should have been squad leader, and he fuckin’ knows it. And he’s as big as a fucking house, so I can’t just beat him into submission.”

“Ouch. And the other guy?”

“Trash,” Razz groaned. “Straight trash. I don’t know who I pissed off to get put in charge of this bunch of losers—“ Then he remembered who he was talking to. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t go crying to you. You know all about that shit.”

“Yeah, and look how well it turned out for me.”

“You got stuck with three fuckups who stalled your career?”

“I got stuck with three war heroes,” she corrected. “Who stalled my career. Temporarily.”

Oh, yeah. Right. He was a war hero now. His fingers itched to pull something up over his face, because it was fucking embarrassing that she mentioned it. But what the fuck ever. He’d live through the embarrassment.

“I don’t think I got war heroes,” he said with a shrug.

“You never know. They might surprise you. Get them to respect you, and you might make something out of them.”

Razz doubted that bunch of assholes was ever going to respect him. If they were Fiends, he could just knife the first one that talked back, and watch the others fall in line, but the NCR didn’t do things that way. Besides, Hoss would get all sad and shit. And the one he sliced up would be Hex, no question, and he didn’t want to murder his own boyfriend’s sister, even if she was a pain in the ass.

“Hey, I never thought I’d get you three dickbags on my side either,” Mags told him. She perched on one of the stripped-down bunks and gave him a serious look. “You might try listening to them.”

“Listen to what? Two out of three don’t even talk. They just _stare_ at me. I miss Poindexter,” he sighed. “At last with a smartass like him, you could tell when he was paying attention.”

“I think you miss O’Hanrahan more,” Mags said with a suggestive eyebrow quirk.

“Yeah,” Razz muttered, which looked like it took her by surprise. “What, you think that’s fuckin’ weird or something? He’s my boyfriend. I’m allowed to miss him.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d cop to it. Razz? Feeling feelings? Being sad?”

“Fuck you, I’m not sad!”

“You’re moping. You haven’t come out of your tent since before Christmas.”

“Bullshit! I go out to use the latrine.” Maybe he was spending some time by himself, but that didn’t mean he was being sad. Razz didn’t _get_ sad. Or if he did, it was a hot-blooded kind of sad that would go away after a good fight. He didn’t mope around for three weeks feeling like he could barely drag himself out of bed just because his boyfriend went home for Christmas and wouldn’t be back for fuck knew how long and he was lonely—

Oh, shit, he was sad.

“You could have gone with him,” Mags said. She’d stopped teasing now. The sincerity was even worse. “I know you would have been approved for leave. And O’Hanrahan would have been over the moon if you asked to come home with him. Actually, I’m surprised he didn’t invite you himself.”

“He did,” Razz admitted. “And—I—panicked.”

“What?” She laughed. “Are you afraid of spending a nice holiday with your boyfriend and his big happy family?”

“No—fuck you. I’m not afraid.” He took a sip of bubble wine, knowing damn well he was just doing it so he could hide behind the glass. But that made it easier to mumble, “I just didn’t-wanna-go-cause whuffthydunlikme.” He drained the glass.

“What if they don’t _like_ you? Razz! You’ve been writing to his mother for months! You’re pen pals!”

“That’s different. She likes mail.”

“You know both of his sisters. _They_ like you.”

“That’s _different_.”

“Razz, you’re being ridiculous. I’m sure they’re very nice people.”

“I know! That’s the fucking problem!” He fell back to shoot a heavy glare at the ceiling of the tent. “I wouldn’t exactly _fit in_ , would I?”

Mags didn’t do what Hoss always did, thank fucking god, and try to tell him how great he was deep down inside. She understood what he was saying better than Hoss ever had. Razz wasn’t ashamed of what he was, but he _was_ what he was. He was a raider and a scavver, good with a gun, better with a knife, with an eye for salvage, and he knew how to take care of himself. He was good. But he wasn’t the guy Hoss’s loving parents would want their only son to spend the rest of his life with. And the second they told him to dump the raider and settle down with a nice farm boy, that would be it.

Razz wasn’t ready for the best thing in his life to be over. Better to put it off as long as he could.

Mags was quiet for a long time. On the radio, an ad for the Ultra-Luxe played itself through.

Then she said, “God, you’re dumb,” and got him another glass of wine.

* * *

By the time the countdown began, Razz was drunk and sleepy and fucking sadder than ever. Mags was lying on Hex’s bunk, listening to the radio and having a shitty time, he could tell. He might have tried to be better company—or much, much worse company, but like in an entertaining way—but it all seemed like too much effort.

“Hey, sorry,” he mumbled without lifting his face from the pillow. She turned to look at him.

“What?”

He used one hand to prop his head up.

“You’re wasting your whole damn night here. You could be out loving it up like those fuckbuckets.” He waved at the radio, and his head hit the pillow. “I mean, living it up. Buckets of fucks.”

“Not my style.”

“You still have time to find somebody else to stick their tongue down your throat.”

“I was going to give you a sisterly peck!”

“Fuck,” he said, not in disappointment, but as punctuation.

On the radio, the crowd chanted, _Ten... Nine..._

“Believe or not, dipshit,” said Mags, “you’re my friend, and I’m here tonight because I want to be.”

_ Five... Four... _

Mags sat up. Razz did, too. The hottest sergeant the army had to offer, and he was going to kiss her like a sister. He didn’t even know who he was anymore.

_ Three... Two... One... _

“Razz!”

The tent flap blew open in a swirl of cold wind, and then Hoss was in the tent, and what the fuck, _Hoss_ was _in the tent_. There were screams and cheers, horns and bells, and a _Happy New Year_ that must have rattled the foundations of New Vegas, and Razz didn’t fucking hear any of it because he was swept up in his boyfriend’s arms and kissing him like they’d just invented lips.

“What—mmm—how—mmmm-m—you’re here?” Some of that was words. It was as much sense as he knew how to make just then.

“I missed you,” Hoss said, breaking for air, but not letting Razz move more than an inch away. Not that he was going to try.

“I missed you, too, but what are you _doing_ here?”

“I got to the farm and realized I didn’t want to spend Christmas without you, so I put Hex inside the door, turned around and came back.”

“But the trains are down.”

“I know. I walked the rest of the way.”

“You _walked_? What the fuck, O’Hanrahan?” He punched him in the shoulder. “You could have run into raiders! Or deathclaws! You could have gotten your stupid self killed!”

“But I missed you,” Hoss repeated. “And I didn’t meet nothing I couldn’t handle. But, I’m sorry, I ate your Christmas present.”

“I don’t give a fuck about—present? I got a present?”

“Ma sent you a great big basket of food, but I got sorta hungry on the way back.” He looked down in shame, like he really thought Razz would rather let him starve while he walked across hostile territory for—by the looks of that beard—more than a week.

Fuck, he looked even better with all that scruff, bone-tired and covered in road dust. Razz kissed him again, hungrily. He’d trade any amount of apple butter for this.

“You ain’t mad?” Hoss asked.

“Fuck no, I’m not mad! You’re _here_!” He drew back, suddenly realizing what that meant. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I missed you,” Hoss said again.

“You missed your family! For a goddamn year, all you could talk about was wanting to see them again, and now you finally get your chance and instead you walk fuck-hundred miles to see _me_?”

“Yes,” Hoss said simply.

“But—you love them.”

“I love _you_.”

“Yeah, okay, sure, but you _love_ your family.” Okay, so Hoss loved him. He said it all the time, and Razz had to believe him because Hoss didn’t lie. But he didn’t think for one minute that it was on the same level. “There’s nothing in the whole damn world that matters more to you than them.”

“You don’t listen real good, do you?” Hoss asked, and kissed him again. This time it was deep and tender, and Razz just melted into it. He didn’t know when he’d ever been kissed like this—

Kiss. Fuck. He was supposed to be kissing Mags.

He looked around for her, but she was gone. Well, fuck it. She was a smart girl. She’d find someone else to lock lips with, and maybe she wouldn’t have to settle for a sisterly peck.

Meanwhile, Razz rested his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder, feeling...

Feeling...

Feeling _things_. All kinds of fucking feelings and shit that he knew he should say out loud because Hoss deserved to know how fucking special he was. He said that kind of shit all the fucking time, and Razz couldn’t even say it once?

He should say it. He should say that he was sad, and then Hoss made him not-sad. Not angry, either. Not twisted up with stupid uncertainty. He was happy. Safe and warm and good and—fuck. He felt like everything was going to be okay. He felt like he could breathe. He felt like he’d been on the verge of drowning for fifteen years, until Hoss came along and pulled his head above the water. He felt like, for the first time in his life, he could think about his own future, but he couldn’t imagine any future without Hoss in it because Hoss was the best thing that ever happened to him. And he felt like he was ready to say all that and more, if he could just open his mouth and say the fucking words.

“I love you,” said Hoss.

“Fuck,” said Razz.


End file.
